


A Question of Age

by SofaKills



Series: Peach Pink Royals [5]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Thinking Far Too Hard About Ages: The Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofaKills/pseuds/SofaKills
Summary: A birthday gift raises some interesting questions, leaving Sabo unfortunately rattled.





	A Question of Age

**Author's Note:**

> This was born from one of the Vivre card booster packs, as Inazuma's age is revealed in his card. With that in mind, this assumes that the age listed, which is 29, is Post-timeskip rather than pre-timeskip.

Birthdays were generally not acknowledged, or even celebrated within the ranks of the Revolutionary Army. That is, in an official sense. Gifts were spread around sporadically if they could be given, with the occasional birthday greeting being thrown out in the halls. 

 

Since there was never much fuss about those days, ages and the like were almost always indistinct. What mattered was the experiences, and how much time and effort that was  poured into all of their respective tasks. Thus, there was a divide between the children and the adults, if only in terms of responsibility. 

 

There were few teachers in the base, with Hack and Inazuma being two of them. Their respective lessons were very different, with Hack taking care of the physical training and thus making sure that the children would become capable members of the Army in time. Inazuma handled the theorem, teaching history and math alongside geography and other subjects. Politics were heavily discussed after a certain point, to let the children consider why the Army acted as it did in certain situations, as well as the purpose of the organization itself. 

 

They would never be allowed to lose sight of those basics, even if they retained nothing else of the theorem. They were not to be mindless soldiers, but efficient actors in their own right, ready and willing to shoulder their respective burdens once they finished their training. 

 

As a result of being the mentors of almost all of the orphans, both Hack and Inazuma were often the recipients of little gifts and congratulations from their students on their birthdays. 

 

It really didn’t help that their birthdays were so close, either. 

 

Nonetheless, each gift and ‘happy birthday’ was accepted, until the lessons ended and the children milled off to their tasks outside of the classroom. 

 

Inazuma let out a quiet sigh once they left, and gathered up the few cards she’d received to put them away. 

 

Though, in the process, she noted the sound of two pairs of footsteps walking into her domain, and smiled softly before turning around. 

 

“Slacking off again?” she asked, giving the Chief of Staff a mock-stern look as she slipped the cards into a box. 

 

“Not this time, I promise.” Sabo said, and threw a bottle her way. 

 

She caught it with ease, inspecting the label curiously. From the looks of it, it was a vintage port wine. One of her favorites, and extremely hard to find.

 

“So you heard my complaint the other day. Thank you.” 

 

“Happy birthday.” Sabo replied, grinning. 

 

“I’m surprised that you were able to get it, and one that’s this aged too..” Inazuma mused, and popped open the bottle before pulling out a pair of glasses. “Did you get one that was my age on purpose?” she then asked, pouring some of it into one glass to offer to him. 

 

“No, I didn’t think about that when I got it. That’s a fun coincidence, though.” Sabo replied, gratefully taking the glass from her. 

 

A moment of silence passed, as Inazuma poured a glass for herself before sealing the bottle again and took a sip. 

 

Then, she watched Sabo proceed to choke on a mouthful of wine. 

 

“Did it finally hit you?” she asked, resisting the urge to laugh a little at the face he was making. 

 

Sabo just nodded, coughing and trying to clear his throat so he could speak again. And, when he finally managed that, he blinked away some tears before looking at her.

 

“I could’ve sworn you were around Ivankov’s age..” he said, idly swirling what remained in his glass. 

 

“Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. I’m only twenty-nine, as things are now.” Inazuma replied, sipping her wine calmly. 

 

Sabo blinked at that, finishing his glass as he considered what that meant. 

 

“... Wait. How old were you when you started to teach me and Koala?” he asked, staring at her in both curiousity and confusion. 

 

“About seventeen, I believe. Why do you ask?” Inazuma asked in return, arching one eyebrow as she met his gaze. 

 

Sabo’s face shifted from one of curiousity into a blank mask, shock turning his eyes glassy and unfocused as he just stared at her. 

 

“..Seventeen?” he repeated, blinking. 

 

“Yes.” Inazuma replied, taking his glass from him so he wouldn’t drop it. 

 

“How did you have the patience to teach all of us anything?” Sabo asked, his shock fading somewhat in favor of searching for answers. He remembered how he’d skirted his responsibilities even before he’d been that age, and he still did. And yet, he remembered Inazuma’s teaching as a constant throughout those years too. 

 

“I made sure to send you off to Hack regularly, for one. I had my own training to do, so I got rid of my stress through that.” she replied, taking off her sunglasses from where they rested on her head to clean them. “In time, that transitioned into working with Iva, and now I’m almost exclusively under their command.” 

 

“Huh… Your patience is scary.” Sabo said, almost flippant. 

 

“It’s my greatest strength.” Inazuma replied, a slightly chilling edge to her smile as she picked up both of the glasses and the bottle. “Now, I’d suggest that you get back to your own work, Chief of Staff.” 

 

Sabo let out a snort, and took off his hat to bow deeply for no reason other than the irony of their disparate ranks demanding for the reverse. 

 

“As you wish.” he said, grinning as he straightened up again. Then, he turned around and left the room. 

 

Inazuma sighed fondly as she watched him do so, and shook her head.

 

“I’ll have to get him a proper gift for his birthday too, now.” she mused, thinking over that idea as she headed towards Ivankov’s chambers. 

 

She couldn’t just leave them out of the celebrations, after all.


End file.
